SwiftKey 6.0 leaves beta, bringing new themes, better emoji and more

Android has had custom keyboards for a really long time now, and for good reason; stock keyboards weren’t often the best experience. SwiftKey is without doubt one of the more popular keyboard replacements, and it has reached a new milestone this week with SwiftKey 6.0 being released to the public. After a couple of weeks in public beta, the final release is now available.

The new features in version 6.0 include:

Double-Word Prediction adds a new dimension to the predictions you see, predicting your next two words at once and helping you type faster than ever

A redesign of the emoji panel, making it more accessible and speedy

A complete overhaul of the settings menu in the style of Material Design to make it easier to fine tune and customize your keyboard

5 new languages: Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu, Xhosa & Breton

An unexpected bonus in the new version was the inclusion of new themes, and not just a couple, but a full 34 of them. The new default theme is striking – Carbon Light – which you can see in the header image above. The full range of themes can be viewed from within the SwiftKey app, though SwiftKey have also published some information about them on their blog.

Other bug fixes and improvements include:

Prediction fixes when tagging/checking into Facebook

Randomly capitalized words won’t be added to your language model

Greater consistency with swipe-to-delete on Samsung devices

No more jumpy cursor or text duplication issues in Chrome or apps using web views

The update is available today from the Play Store; it’s already reached my phone this morning (nice and early) so it should be available for everyone fairly quickly if you haven’t got it already.

Chris Rowland Editor and Publisher

Chris has been at the forefront of smartphone reporting in Australia since smartphones were a thing, and has used mobile phones since they came with giant lead-acid batteries that were "transportable" and were carried in a shoulder bag. He saw the transition from AMPS to GSM, loved the Motorola StarTac, and got into Palm technologies in a big way. The arrival some years later of the original iPhone, and then the early Androids, awoke a new interest in mobile technology, and Chris has been writing about it since.

Today, Chris publishes one of Australia's most popular technology websites, Ausdroid. His interests include mobile (of course), as well as connected technology and how it can make all our lives easier.